Exercise Your Right to Representation
Public participation in the Ward 5 City Council appointment is essential.
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling ’22 is flying by faster than any year in recent memory. The Brief has been on a little hiatus, but it’s time to jump back in. In fact, it’s time for all of us to jump in—with both feet. Our local government is at a critical juncture, with the appointment of a new Ward 5 City Councilmember on the immediate horizon, and the elections for the Ward 2 and 4 Council seats and the Mayor’s seat coming up in just a few short months. (The Nevada Independent recently published a preview of those races in which the candidates mention some of their priorities, so be sure to give it a read.)
City Council will select the finalists for the Ward 5 Council vacancy at a Special Meeting on Thursday, August 25 beginning at 12 noon. It’s one step in the special appointment process, which is fully outlined here, and resident participation is absolutely critical—not just for residents of Ward 5 (here’s the ward map if you need a reminder) but for all of us.
The Ward 5 City Council Vacancy
As you likely know, Neoma Jardon recently resigned from her position as the Ward 5 City Council representative to become the Executive Director of the nonprofit Downtown Reno Partnership (DRP), which manages the City’s Business Improvement District (BID). It is a rather curious and certainly unprecedented leap between two deeply intertwined entities. In her role as a City Councilmember, Jardon voted to create the DRP, approved the system by which assessments on downtown properties are levied and directed to it, and became one of its founding board members. She also voted to direct public funding to it as a board member of RTC Washoe.
The search for the inaugural Executive Director of the DRP back in 2018 was national in scope, resulting in the hire of Alex Stettinski, who had previously served as the executive director of the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce and marketing director for business and tourism organizations in Los Angeles and West Hollywood. On July 11 of this year, the San Jose (California) Downtown Association announced they had hired Stettinski to be their new CEO after a six-month national search. The chair of the Downtown Reno Partnership’s board immediately announced their intent to hire from within the Reno market, and just three weeks later (August 8), announced that they had selected Jardon to be their new Executive Director, saying they had considered candidates from out of town but that she had risen to the top. She resigned from the City effective August 15.
The timing of Jardon’s switcheroo is especially unfortunate in terms of selecting someone to serve the remaining two years of her term. The appointment of her replacement (scheduled for September 7) is coming two months before the general elections that will decide who will serve as the representatives for two other City wards and the Mayor. It might seem natural to just throw this position on that ballot, too, but according to the Washoe County Registrar, that’s not possible, and neither is a special election for this individual seat any earlier than next year.
That last piece of news shocked City Councilmembers, and certainly seems like something to address in the future, since appointments obviously don’t allow a ward’s residents to select their own representative. And given the rapid pace of the process, the public has very little chance to even get to know the candidates vying for the job. For this first round, occurring on August 25, City staff is recommending that the Council select “up to three finalists” from the 36 applicants who just threw their hats into the ring last week.
For candidates, of course, the appointment process is exponentially less arduous than an election. It’s free. It requires no formal campaigning or campaign materials, meaning there’s no need to solicit campaign contributions, which can be a relief. On the downside, campaign contributions can help residents identify which candidates are being supported by various special interests, if any. That’s all a bit tougher to suss out during the rapid appointment process, which provides a natural advantage to candidates who Councilmembers already know (and there is no doubt a flurry of fervent lobbying happening behind the scenes).
So pay attention, everyone. Council will select a handful of finalists in the first round, with meet & greets scheduled for August 30 and 31. If you are a candidate, thank you so much for stepping up! Please make yourself as available as possible to residents in every forum that you can. We want to get to know you and how you perceive this important position. Widespread participation and the sharing of information throughout this process are absolutely critical, particularly if you live in Ward 5, so now’s the time to show up, log on, and tune in. If you prefer not to attend in person, you can register to participate in the August 25 meeting via Zoom here and anyone can view the agenda with all the candidate applications here.
City Council’s Roles in Urban Development
Council representation is of course the pillar of democratic local government, ensuring that our City’s policies reflect what the people want. It’s our Council’s job to formulate those policies, set priorities, and direct City staff to implement them. My focus in the Brief is development, so I just want to remind readers that Reno’s City Council currently wields more control over development than it ever has before.
That’s due in part to a series of actions that City Council has taken over the past several years to eliminate levels of review for certain aspects of development, something I wrote about in a June op-ed for the Reno News & Review called “Thorough development review safeguards the public good.” Some view the consolidation of approval into fewer hands as “streamlining,” a desirable way to expedite construction of needed housing and other projects. But experience has shown us that much of the time, expedited approvals are followed by months and even years of inaction on the part of the developers who once claimed a need for urgency, and that consolidating decision-making into fewer hands has simply resulted in poorer projects.
I provided a quick rundown of some of Council’s development-related roles in my Introduction to the Brief back in January 2021, and we’ve seen many put into practice over the subsequent 20 months. So I’ll list them again here with a few examples.
1. Formulating and revising city ordinances related to land use (Title 18)
Examples of these ordinance changes include the removal of levels of review in the City’s Shade Ordinance and Skyways Ordinance passed by City Council in 2019 and 2020, respectively. The City was found to have violated Open Meeting Law when voting to modify the skyways ordinance and a hearing on a similar lawsuit regarding the shade ordinance was just held earlier this month.
2. Creating new programs to streamline real estate development
These include initiatives like 1,000 Homes in 120 Days, which deferred certain fees for qualified residential projects in an attempt to “incentivize the rapid development of new housing units,” and other programs to reduce or subside fees for affordable housing development projects.
3. Entering into binding “development agreements” that can provide private landowners certain flexibility and guarantees, in return for specified benefits to the city or community.
The first and only Development Agreement to come to City Council for approval since they adopted their new guidelines was for Jacobs Entertainment’s Neon Line. It did not require advance review by the Planning Commission or any public workshops and was approved by City Council despite overwhelming public opposition. Scenic Nevada filed a lawsuit against the City challenging the agreement’s legal validity, and in June, a District Court judge denied Jacobs Entertainment’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, paving the way for a court review of the entire Development Agreement.
4. Approving the purchase or acquisition of private property.
Recent examples of this include the City’s purchase of the Lear Theater from Artown for $875,000. The future use of the historic First Church of Christ, Scientist has yet to be determined.
5. Approving the re-zoning of property to allow for different uses.
Areas are often re-zoned to increase the number and density of housing units allowed there or to change the allowed uses—say, to enable commercial or industrial uses.
6. Selling property owned by the City of Reno or the Reno Redevelopment Agency to specific buyers with or without offering it to the public first.
Recent examples include the sale of two downtown City parcels to Jacobs Entertainment last August. The parcels, a former City parking lot on West 2nd Street and a lot on Keystone Avenue south of West 4th Street, remain vacant.
7. “Abandoning” public rights-of-way including city streets and alleyways in order to enable private development of them.
The City approved the abandonment of Church Lane and several alleys at the request of Jacobs Entertainment last fall. These requests don’t have to go through the Planning Commission, and the only required finding is that the general public will not be “materially injured” by the abandonment.
8. Regulating the use, maintenance, and naming of public parks, spaces, and city-owned buildings.
Public parks, spaces, and city-owned buildings include the City Plaza, Locomotion Plaza, the Lear Theater, the Southern Pacific Railroad Depot, and more.
9. Hearing and ruling on appeals of previous decisions made by various city commissions (including the Planning Commission) and City of Reno staff.
Council not only rules on appeals of these decisions, but can override recommendations of their own City staff, as they did recently when approving a higher allowed decibel level for Jacobs Entertainment’s Glow Plaza than even Jacobs Entertainment had requested, against the recommendation of City planners, and earlier this year by approving 300 extra units at the Meridian 120 South project, despite City attorney Karl Hall’s stated opinion that such a move would violate the law.
And there’s one more role I didn’t mention that warrants attention.
10. Appointing Planning Commissioners
Each City Councilmember plus the Mayor gets to appoint one member of the Planning Commission. And those individuals don’t need to be from their ward or hold any expertise related to city planning.
When considered as a whole, it should be abundantly clear why extensive citizen involvement in selecting Jardon’s replacement is so crucial. So be sure to participate in the process, and share your thoughts on who you’d like to see representing Ward 5 for the next two years. I hope to see some robust public discussion on the road to the final decision on September 7.
What’s ahead for The Barber Brief?
I thought you’d never ask! My Brief hiatus (see what I did there?) has given me the opportunity to reflect a bit on why I started writing this newsletter in the first place, what I’ve accomplished, and how best to move forward. You have to remember that I started publishing via Substack in January 2021, in the height of pandemic shutdowns, before virtual meetings were second nature to anyone regularly conducting business on a computer. The Neighborhood Advisory Boards (NABS) were not meeting at all, even virtually. City Council was conducting virtual meetings, but the public was confused about how to participate. And the City’s notification process left a lot to be desired. There was no way for the public to easily learn when certain development projects would be discussed at their NAB, Planning Commission, or City Council in advance of the posting of the meeting agendas, one week in advance. So I tried in part to fill that void with regular previews and updates.
Since then, the City’s meeting notifications and logistics have dramatically improved. The NABs, of course, resumed meeting. Hybrid meetings at every level now allow for public participation both in person and virtually. And the City has become much better at spreading awareness of meetings via e-newsletters and social media. You can subscribe to receive news and updates via email on a variety of topics on this City webpage. It takes less than a minute to visit the page, make your selections, and get subscribed, so please do it right now (or at least right after you finish reading this).
One of the most informative to me is the Development Projects newsletter, which is sent out via email twice a month and is a user-friendly accompaniment to the Development Projects page (which includes a helpful map). It’s formatted with links to permit applications and upcoming meetings, and there’s even a handy Development Review Guide to help residents understand how it all works. I’m grateful to staff for all of these improvements. As a result of their efforts, I don’t feel such an obligation to preview every single development-related item on upcoming agendas. Whew!
So what does that mean for the Brief? Well, hopefully that means they can be more, well, brief. And I can focus on what I do best: providing context for selected issues, and offering analysis and insights based on my twenty years of researching American cities (including Reno) and participating firsthand in Reno’s development. It means I’ll be talking a bit more about the other work I’m doing with respect to Reno’s built environment, from my research and talks on the local architecture of Paul Revere Williams to the historical and creative placemaking efforts I’m engaged in through my consulting firm, Stories in Place to my historic preservation advocacy. I’ll include more narrated videos and provide links to what I’m reading about other cities, to help inform our understanding of what’s happening in our local community.
I’ve heard some say “It’s easy to be a critic,” but I can assure you that writing the Brief is one of the hardest things I’ve ever taken on, from the research and analysis involved to the repercussions of tackling controversial issues in a public forum. In my view, “criticism” is an analytical enterprise, not a judgmental one. To offer critique is to subject issues to constructive critical examination and review, in hopes of inspiring better future outcomes—in this case, by improving public processes and producing results worthy of our city and its residents. I think we need that kind of careful analysis more than ever, and judging from the groundswell of support I’ve experienced, you do, too. So thank you for that. I’m glad to be back.
There’s a lot going on right now besides the Ward 5 appointment and upcoming elections, and I’ll have more to say about a lot of it very soon, from the Micromobility Pilot Project and Virginia Street Placemaking Study to updates on many of the development projects I’ve written about. So stay tuned!
As always, you can view this and prior newsletters on my Substack site and follow the Brief (and contribute to the ongoing conversation) on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. If you feel inspired to contribute to my efforts, my Venmo account is @Dr-Alicia-Barber and you can mail checks, if you like, to Alicia Barber at P.O. Box 11955, Reno, NV 89510. Thanks so much for reading.